Works well in the U.S., not well at CDG.

that's because they're...well...CDG. Strange lot, those people. and trust me - I've lived there!

Overall, I seem to notice pretty good results with the Priority Tag. My 2 main airports, GSO and JAX usually get it right. On the trip I am currently returning from, I noticed that Priority Tags came off first in DXB, ATH, MYK, and JFK, but not FRA. I guess 4 for 5 ain't too bad.

I assume they have the "baggage claim" version of the Easy Check-In kiosks at IAD. I always check those ASAP at airports where they're available, if for no other reason than they tend to be more accurate about the belt number than the PA announcement given by the GA who meets the flight. But they'll also give you an early heads-up if your bag has been waylaid.

Agree, although they are not always functioning . I think they are great when they are working and available. I hate waiting an hour only to find the bag isn't there, anyway.

I checked a bag last weekend when flying RDU-ORD-PHX. I had to remind the ticket agent at RDU to apply a priority tag (the claim tag had a big P on it so I decided I should get one) and very happily my bag was the 8th off at PHX ^ All the early bags off were Priority tagged ones too ^^

I took a flight from HKG to SFO last May. I waited for 80 minutes to pick up my 3 pieces of luggage attached with priority tags. I saw a lot of "regular" luggages came out before mine. I almost did not make my connecting flight to LAX after going thru US customs.

Priority tagged bags were among the first out from my EWR-IAD flight yesterday. ^

Problem was, it took CO 50 minutes to bring the bags out from the Q400.

Years ago, before I was 1K or 1P, I flew int'l on a 747, SYD-LAX, and with no priority tags, my two checked bags were the first two bags off the conveyor belt at LAX. People were mightily impressed, but I've never come close to that since!

I still think it is a coin-flip whether or not the tag helps, thus I play the size game with my carry-on whenever possible to forgo the usually long wait for bags to arrive out of the belly of the beast.

I don't think they do much. Lots of bags that were not tagged priority were on the belt before mine were at LHR on Friday.

Probably has been hashed earlier in this thread, but I think this holds true for most U.S. / European stations. At a minimum things are very inconsistent at those locations.

However I've found my priority-tagged bags to be consistently among the first 5-10 bags (all also with priority tags) on carousels in Asia.

Now that even Premiers get Priority tags, a felt 75% of the plane have them so what's the point?

Whoa, I definitely missed this. Do you have a link? (Edit: it is indeed true as of 5/11/11: http://www.united.com/page/article/0,6867,1163,00.html) If this is true, we are literally down to just 75% worth of RDM bonus and lounge access in int'l Y separating 1P from 2P.

Being BOS-based, it takes effort (and $) to keep travel consolidated on COdbaUA. Not sure I'm going to be making that effort in the future.

I thought I already posted this but now I see that my post and the one before mine are both gone. Anyway, 1P also gets 3 70lb bags instead of 2 50lb bags as well as higher upgrade and standby priority.

So last Sunday night at BOS, I discovered that having a priority tag means being the last one to find your bags.... UA 618 -- Announced that 618 bags were on 1, all others were on 2. I noticed that the first bags out did not have priority tags. In fact, none had priority tags. I suppose that was a clue but I was tired... After all the bags were out, there were a bunch of us still waiting. Someone finally realized they were on 2 with the hundreds of other bags from SFO & IAD. They had put all the priority bags on 2 but didn't bother to let anyone know. So much for getting out faster!